Eva
by Sunbird Riding Shotgun
Summary: Sophie wasn't her real name. If she'd ever had one to begin with her mother had never told her. The daughter of one of history's best grifters identity had never really had the same meaning to her.


**A/n:** This was inspired by Nightwish's song "Eva". If you get a chance give it a listen.

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**Eva**

Sophie wasn't her real name. Jenny wasn't either. In all honesty she never had one to begin with. The daughter of one of history's best grifter's she'd been her mother's prop even before she'd been born. Her mother molded her into what she was from the beginning, telling her who she was and how to act and what to like, constantly changing it. One week she was Teresa Waller, Mrs. Delilah Flemmings young ward who loved ponies, and the next she was Elizabeth Briana Northshire heiress to the family fortune and her mother's piano prodigy, and so it went on. Her mother always called her by whatever her name was at the moment, never told Sophie their last name or her father's identity.

Only a perfect performance even got a few words of praise and any flaw received harsh scoldings and annoyed silence. Sophie wanted to be perfect always and by the age of nine she could play whatever role her mother threw at her. Her mother even started to refer to her as her co-star and talk about their jobs more than to give orders.

But it was that year that things changed. After a job turned disastrous when Sophie had been forced to try to mingle with children her own age and stood out like a neon sign in the worst ways her mother had decided they needed a training break. She set up new identities for them and told Sophie their new job. In order to learn how to deal with children Sophie would now become "Eva Adams" and would attend Swanbrook elementary for three months.

Things started out like a dream almost. Other than her name and family history Eva was allowed to decide everything about herself. She chose her favorite food (cherries), her favorite color (purple), her favorite animal (horses), and even got to pick out her wardrobe, carefully studying the school children before picking clothes of similar style. Her mother praised her for her ability to create a perfectly normal schoolchild character to play.

But what Eva was most happy about was that she'd been allowed to design her personality as well. She remade herself as she always did when taking on a new role, only this time she chose the aspects. She wanted to be liked so she would be nice, really nice. She liked it when people were nice to her so she'd be nice to everyone. It felt good to be nice. She'd be energetic to, but not too much. She'd be a little nievee, but not a ditz. Big hearted, smiling, happy, with a teddy bear backpack that gave her a quirk to not be unusually normal.

At first it had worked like magic. Her teacher loved her, her classmates adored the new girl they called "Evvie". She was so nice and they felt compelled to be nice back. There was one day she'd always remember, late in the fall around harvest time when the class went to a sunflower field and they made a "Sunflower court" and made Eva Princess. The sun had shone so bright that day, they'd all laughed so hard with eachother, the boys had sworn themselves as knights and the "queen and king" started a contest to find their princess a worthy prince. They'd all been friends that day.

But things were already changing. Nasty rumors Eva had only thought big kids would indulge in started to spread. Eva started to slip up. She'd never stayed in a character this long and her mother was growing tired of playing a house wide. Things started to fall apart and people called her a fake.

They called her names. They ruined her cute teddy bear backpack. They laughed at her. She realized there was one flaw in the plan of being nice making everyone love her. It made people feel bad that they weren't that nice. It made them ashamed and it made them want to demonize her.

She'd made an amateur mistake, she'd tried to be perfect and this one beautiful happy life was done for. She was alone again with nothing left but "Eva", a nice little girl who she'd only dreamed she could really be.

Except there was that boy who stood by her, who stayed her friend. He'd won the tournament to be her prince and he was her prince to the end. Right up to the night she had him over for dinner. Right up through the next day when he told her in the best words that a little boy could muster that mothers didn't call their daughters names or make them do all the housework. He called her Cindereva and wanted to take her away and make her a real princess.

6:30 the next morning they put the last of their bags into a van and slipped away into the falling snow. Her mother gave her a new identity and told her she wasn't Eva anymore so she could wipe that idiotic smile off her face. She spent the six hour long drive giving critique on everything she'd done, reminding Eva exactly why she was nothing without her mother and that in the end she was an empty canvas. Only her mother could give her meaningful form.

But she still had Eva. She had her like an imaginary friend living in her head and when she closed her eyes she could see pretty little Eva dancing through sunflower fields with her prince. She'd found a piece of herself her mother couldn't wipe away to create some new persona.

She was never the same after that. She started acting out in little ways, and her acting skills dropped. She no longer became whoever she was supposed to, she put on a mask over Eva and the rest of her that became Cindereva. Her mother noticed and the scoldings and critiques turned into long drawn out screaming lectures that boiled down to how useless she was.

She tried, but she couldn't go back to the way she'd been before. She was Cindereva, she knew there was something wrong. The games of her childhood weren't games anymore. Her mother used her, pushed her, and left her with a stinging cheek at the first wrong move. She kept waiting for something, maybe thinking she'd hear that prince calling to her but a year, then two passed, and she fell into a new old life. With all her old loves and motivations gone she started living for those nights she'd dream about that sunflower field and little Eva and all the good things she still had in her, stored safely away.

Sometimes she wondered why she never left, especially the older she got. She knew she could make her own way in the world, con her way into a real life. Except she knew she wasn't normal and she was nothing without her mother. Except she knew she wasn't either, or was both. It was confusing when her mind and what her mother taught her conflicted.

She knew she'd leave one day. She wouldn't stay with her mother a second longer than she had to, except she didn't **have** to anymore. She could of left already and made her own way. But maybe she could only make people love her for a little while and that was why Swansbrook had gone so badly.

Her mom always had to love her even if she rarely showed it.

It wasn't until she was fourteen and her mother started having her play new roles for new cons. Roles that she didn't completely understand but she hadn't been so isolated she didn't know there was something wrong about it. The way the men watched her. The things they said. It made her blush and feel dirty and she didn't know why.

Her mother said it made her powerful but Eva said it just meant her mother was finding more ways to use her. If she didn't draw the line somewhere…

Then came that job where everything went wrong. Where her mother got caught and Cindereva got away. Her mother contacted her, ordering her to do something, to go somewhere, to do what the men told her. Her mother told her if she didn't they'd kill her. Eva knew enough to know what would happen. She knew enough to guess what they'd do.

But, she still loved her mother. Even if she was Cindereva who had come to hate that wicked stepmother she still had little Eva who loved her mother the way only children can.

She went.

Later she would barely even recall what happened. Trauma, her own fractured mind, and her life to that date meant blocking out that night was nearly easy. If it weren't for the nightmares and scars she might have been able to pretend it never happened. If it weren't for the fact her mother slapped her for "being hysteric" two days later she might have tried.

That night she dreamed about that field, winter had rolled in and the children were gone. Little Eva lay broken and cold in the ruins of the court, her little cute teddy bear backpack covered with mud. Cindereva buried Eva and then buried herself in the cornstacks to hide as her body moved puppet like back out and walked away.

She woke up, took everything of value she could find, and left, already creating her first alias. Marie Tyson, she'd been wealthy but her father drank and abused her so she'd taken off with what she could to find a new life.

At fourteen she started making her own way in the world.

It's funny how life takes it's turns. It was only a couple of years before Marie turned to Kathrine then Hermionie and god knew how many others and she'd become a grifter just like her mother. She was nameless again, whoever she was this week.

She did find new things to love. Shopping and clothes were fun. She made friends who liked whoever she was when she was with them. She found favorite shows and learned to love the theatre. She liked shoes, probably more than was healthy, but they were cute and they gave her something physical to obsess over.

She didn't **think** anymore. Well she thought, just not about anything that had happened before she buried the Eva's. She was a new person, hell she was a new person every week.

Then she met that man, the one who looked like the prince all grown up. She was Sophie when they met, well when they shot eachother. It was strange luck she was Sophie again when she finally got a chance to introduce herself. It was an odd friendship, half born out of pursuit, but he was a white knight, a prince like the boy he reminded her of. She stayed Sophie after that, as often as she could.

But he was a white night and she was a black queen and had been too messed up for him long before she'd made up Eva. She gave up that little dream and moved on.

But then he showed up at her show, he became the black king, and there were others like her. Others who'd been messed up and broken and were better griffters than anyone would ever know. She could see it in their eyes like they could see it in hers. They were all conning the world into thinking they had everything they wanted. They were conning themselves into thinking they weren't conning the world.

And then things worked and they should of split up then and yet…

That night she dreamed about the sunflower field again for the first time since she'd buried Eva. Winter was fading away and the first bit of green was showing around Eva's grave.

She didn't leave her hiding place, it wasn't time yet. But maybe it would turn out it was a burrow not a tomb, and sooner or later spring would come. She didn't know who she'd be and she didn't know what it would look or feel like. She didn't know if it would last or for how long or if she'd self destruct it again.

But spring would come and she'd be with the Leverage team when it did.

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End file.
